A long-overdue biography of the Victorian scientist, mountaineer, and public intellectual.

The Victorian physicist John Tyndall is one of those figures who tend to appear on the periphery of other people’s biographies. He socialised and worked with many famous individuals, and was himself famous and influential in his day. But his fame rapidly diminished after his tragic death.

Roland Jackson suggests, at the conclusion of this excellent biography, that Tyndall’s relative obscurity these days can be attributed to three factors: (1) his wife’s failure to produce a planned biography meant no biography appeared until 1945 (over 50 years after Tyndall’s death); (2) Tyndall was a great experimentalist, rather than theoretician, and it is the theoreticians who tend to be remembered in physics; (3) Tyndall was one of the last of the great classical physicists, missing out on the revolutionary discoveries that took place in his chosen field within a few years of his death. By the time the first biography appeared, Tyndall’s physics was, in some respects, out of fashion.

Tyndall’s reputation is due a renaissance. As the person who explained the physics behind what is now known as the Greenhouse Effect, he deserves to be better known at a time when human-induced climate change is finally being recognised as one of the most pressing concerns of our age (at least by those who don’t have a vested interest in denying it).

In addition to the Greenhouse Effect, Tyndall is perhaps best known for explaining why the sky is blue. Indeed, he receives honourable mention regarding both these subjects in my book On the Moor: Science, History and Nature on a Country Walk. But, I must confess, my knowledge of Tyndall’s science pretty much ended with these two subjects until I read this extensive biography. True, I did know he was a member of the X-Club: a dining society of scientific friends, who campaigned on behalf of naturalistic science (and, therefore, against the encroachment of theology into scientific matters). I also knew that he was a friend of Charles Darwin, climbed the Matterhorn, and was accidentally killed by his wife (see my book for more details). But I had no idea Tyndall had explained how atmospheric conditions can affect the transmission of sound (another topic touched on in my book). Nor did I know he was a forceful proponent of atomic theory, ether theory, and the germ theory of disease. Nor that his investigations into germ theory and other topics led to his invention of a new sterilisation process, the firefighting respirator, and to an improved design for foghorns. While these topics might sound eclectic, Jackson shows how they all stemmed from related studies into sound and light transmissions through gases.

For a change, my hero Charles Darwin is very much a peripheral figure himself in this biography. Other scientists, rightly, feature more prominently. The cast of characters is daunting: I would have appreciated a brief dramatis personae at the front of the book to remind me occasionally who some of them were. Notable figures include Robert Bunsen, Heinrich Gustav Magnus, Michael Faraday, Charles Wheatstone, Charles Babbage, Rudolf Clausius, James Joule, John Herschel, William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin), Thomas Henry Huxley, Joseph Dalton Hooker, John Lubbock, George Busk, Herbert Spencer, Richard Owen, James Dewar, and Louis Pasteur. But Tyndall’s extensive social and professional circle didn’t stop at scientists. As well as a generous smattering of the nobility, his friends also included Alfred Lord Tennyson and Thomas Carlyle. Last but by no means least, I have to declare a special interest in Tyndall’s closest friend, the mathematician Thomas Archer Hirst, who, Jackson recently suggested to me following an exchange on Twitter, might possibly have been the previous owner of my personal copy of Tyndall’s last book, New Fragments.

From relatively humble beginnings, Tyndall first worked as a surveyor in his native Ireland before moving to England, where he worked for the railway surveyor (and my magnificent namesake) Richard Carter. It was while he was based in Halifax that he became friends with Hirst. Both later went on to study in Marburg, in what is now Germany. An invitation for Tyndall to give a talk at the Royal Institution, which was deemed a great success, led to further invitations and a job offer from Faraday. Tyndall was to spend the rest of his career at the Royal Institution, where he eventually succeeded Faraday. Like his predecessor, he was greatly admired for the quality of his public lectures, which often involved live demonstrations.

It was ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’, Thomas Henry Huxley, who first seems to have interested Tyndall in the study of glaciers. Tyndall’s subsequent trip to the Alps led to a life-long love of mountaineering. It was a golden age for the sport, which Tyndall still occasionally treated as a scientific pursuit. Some of his mountaineering exploits sound reckless to modern ears. I was amused at his thinking a bottle of champagne was suitable refreshment when attempting a new alpine peak. That said, Tyndall was the first person to climb the Weisshorn, and, after a number of earlier attempts on the summit, the first to traverse the Matterhorn (which had been conquered only three years earlier, not so much with a bang as by a Whymper).

The Tyndall that emerges from this biography is a fascinating and likeable character. He doesn’t seem to have had much of a sense of humour, but he comes across as a loyal friend, outspoken champion of science, forceful critic, and a man with a strong appreciation for the charms of the female sex (albeit, not for their intellectual abilities). Jackson seems to find his subject likeable too, although he is not above criticising Tyndall for his sexism, and occasional disingenuities and inconsistencies.

Jackson is one of the editors on the ongoing John Tyndall Correspondence Project. As well as in his copious correspondence, Tyndall’s life is well documented through journals, scientific papers, newspapers, periodicals, and books. The amount of documentation available means Jackson has been able to stick to the facts, without the need for too much conjecture (the bane of many biographies). He has also adopted a mainly chronological approach when telling the story of Tyndall’s life. This always strikes me as the best approach in biographies, although it does make the accounts of Tyndall’s yearly lecturing and mountaineering cycles occasionally repetitive.

The Ascent of John Tyndall is a long-overdue, magnificent tribute to an important, but largely under-appreciated scientist.

Janet Browne’s magnificent two-volume biography of Charles Darwin is the one against which all others must now be judged.

Volume 1, Voyaging, takes us from Darwin’s birth in 1809 to his decision in 1856 finally to start work on the ‘species sketch’ that would become On the Origin of Species. In between, we learn about his school days; his abortive studies in medicine at Edinburgh; his university days at Cambridge; his five-year voyage around the world aboard HMS Beagle; his rise to prominence as a man of science; his early publications; his devising of, and early research into, his theory of evolution by means of natural selection; and his marriage to his cousin Emma Wedgwood, and their settlement in their perma-home at Down House in Kent.

Volume 2, The Power of Place, resumes the story, taking us from the 1858 bombshell letter from Alfred Russel Wallace, indicating Darwin was in danger of being scooped, to Darwin’s death and Westminster Abbey funeral in 1882. In between, we have On the Origin of Species and all Darwin’s subsequent books, from orchids to The Ascent of Man to earthworms.

I’ve often said, and continue to maintain, that the best way to get to know Darwin is to read his copious correspondence. Janet Browne worked for a number of years on the Darwin Correspondence Project, and her work there very much informs this wonderful biography. Browne is particularly good on Darwin the strategist and tactician, showing how, through the medium of the letter, he developed and made highly effective use of a widespread social network.

Browne is also excellent on how Darwin’s more obscure works (on such apparently diverse subjects as coral reefs, orchids, insectivorous plants, sexual selection, movement in plants, variation, expressions of emotions, and earthworms) fitted into a bigger picture. I was particularly interested in her take on Darwin’s barnacle work. Darwin’s eight-year study into barnacles is usually presented (correctly) as a somewhat excessive precautionary attempt to establish his credentials as an acknowledged expert on a particular group of species. He felt he need such credentials before having the temerity to announce a theory claiming to explain the evolution of all species. But Browne shows how Darwin’s barnacle work also helped influence his theory, making him fully appreciate the amount of variation to be found in nature.

It is not possible to do justice to over 1,000 pages of magnificent biography in such a brief review, but, if you want to get to know Charles Darwin (and you’re not prepared to read the 25 volumes and counting of his published Correspondence), you would be well advised to start here.

The fourth of Stephen Jay Gould’s long-running series of popular science essay collections that first appeared in his monthly column in Natural History magazine, The Flamingo’s Smile covers topics which include:

the unusual structure of flamingoes’ beaks;

the mating habits of praying mantises;

animals that change sex;

conjoined twins;

the Portuguese man-of-war;

weird attempts to reconcile geological and biblical timescales and events;

Lord Kelvin’s calculations of the age of the earth;

the Kinsey Reports;

baseball statistics;

Ediacaran and other fossils;

the Great Chain of Being;

the Hottentot Venus;

eugenics;

Darwin’s poor record-keeping in the Galápagos Islands;

corn;

the search for extraterrestrial intelligence;

extinction events.

As with all of Gould’s essay collections, this is a fantastic book, although I wouldn't classify it amongst my particular favourites. But highly recommended, nevertheless.

The second of Stephen Jay Gould’s long-running series of popular science essay collections that first appeared in his monthly column in Natural History magazine, The Panda’s Thumb covers topics including:

how imperfections in organisms’ demonstrate their evolutionary history;

Charles Darwin and his theories;

human evolution;

science and politics;

the rate at which evolution occurs;

early life;

how Nature’s ‘rejects’ were anything but;

how animals’ life-spans (and other attributes) are affected by their size.

The first of Stephen Jay Gould’s long-running series of popular science essay collections that first appeared in his monthly column in Natural History magazine, Ever Since Darwin covers topics including:

Having gradually begun to calm down after a couple of days’ impotent rage at the result of the EU Referendum, I turned to this short book on humanism in an attempt to restore some of my faith in humanity. I was seeking reassurance that people, as individuals, still mostly try to do the right thing, given the information available to them. That, as human beings, we really should all try to be on the same side. And that, cynicism aside, we are still capable in embracing big ideas while, it is to be hoped, rejecting unsubstantiated nonsense.

I’ve always avoided describing myself as a humanist. Partly because the word seems to mean different things to different people; partly because I don’t like labels, and I’m not really a joiner; and partly because, if I’m honest, I’ve always found the word a bit cringeworthy (an entirely unreasonable reservation, I accept, but a reservation nevertheless).

The philosopher Stephen Law gets this short guide off to an excellent start with a brief introductory chapter entitled What is humanism? Here, while acknowledging that the word ‘humanism’ means different things to different people, he identifies seven minimum characteristics that most humanists would agree unites them philosophically. In subsequent chapters, Law goes on to describe how these characteristics influence humanist views on morality, secularism, education, and the meaning of life. All of which, as you should expect, are explained very rationally.

Less interesting to me were the back-to-back chapters entitled Arguments for the existence of God, and An argument against the existence of God. While ‘atheist’ is one of the few labels I am happy to embrace, it seemed to me that these chapters deflected somewhat from the central topic of the book, and would have been better placed in an introduction to theism or atheism.

This minor criticism aside, I enjoyed this book very much indeed, and emerged from it considerably calmer, feeling better disposed to my fellow human beings, and reluctantly accepting that the label ‘humanist’ might, after all, apply to me.

The late Stephen Jay Gould more than once observed that, were it possible to roll back time and re-run evolutionary history, we would most likely end up with very different results. Minor differences in circumstances can lead to very different evolutionary pathways.

Others, most notably Simon Conway Morris, hold that evolution is far more predictable than Gould would have had us believe. As evidence, they cite the interesting phenomenon of convergent evolution, where different species evolve strikingly similar features in similar circumstances. A classic example is the similar body shapes of dolphins, sharks, ichthyosaurs, and (at more of a stretch) penguins: these predators’ ‘designs’ enable them to move quickly under water. If mammals, fish, ichthyosaurs, and birds evolved such similar shapes for moving at speed in the same environment, the argument goes, evolution must, to some extent, be predictable.

Those who maintain that evolution is more predictable than we might suppose sometimes go so far as to claim that upright, bipedal, intelligent life was almost inevitable on Earth. Had it not been for that pesky asteroid, they say, the world would now, quite possibly, be being ruled by dinosaurian, rather than mammalian, humanoids. This despite the fact that, as far as we know, upright, bipedal, intelligent dinosaurs failed to evolve in the 180-million years that dinosaurs actually did rule the earth.

Jonathon Losos's interesting book sets out to explore both the phenomenon of convergent evolution, and the possibility of performing experiments to assess evolutionary predictions. In the first part of the book, he describes many examples of convergent evolution. In subsequent sections, he describes experiments in the wild, and in more controlled environments, to determine whether the accuracy of various evolutionary predictions can be tested.

Although convergent evolution is a genuinely fascinating phenomenon, it is considerably less remarkable when the species in question are closely related. When presented with similar environmental challenges, is it really at all surprising when closely related species evolve similar solutions? Evolution can only tinker with what is already there; how many fundamentally different tweaks can be made to closely related lizards, for example, to help them evade a new predator? In fairness to Losos, he makes this point more than once, but, to this non-expert at least, it seemed as if more might have been made of it. There is a world of a difference between two species of stickleback, to cite another example, evolving brighter colours in the absence of predators, and dinosaurs evolving into intelligent humanoids. Even if small-scale convergent evolution of closely related species is common, extrapolating to claim that the evolution of intelligent humanoids is almost inevitable is another thing entirely.

Sensibly, Losos doesn't spend too much time examining arguments about putative humanoid dinosaurs—although he does eventually make his own position clear. This book is primarily about the experiments: how scientists have begun to test evolutionary predictions, and to assess how particular examples of convergent evolution come about. Both of which strike me as far more interesting and useful than coming up with untestable hypotheses about where dinosaurs might have gone next.

Built on Bones explores how archaeologists interpret dental and skeletal remains. In particular, it examines what we can infer from changes in humans’ bodies associated with our move from hunter-gatherer groups to agricultural and, later, urban societies. Or, as Brenna Hassett puts it: ‘This book is about human adaptation in the face of human invention.’

It’s a fascinating subject for a book, and bioarchaeologist Hassett is well qualified to write about it. The book contained some, to me, surprising revelations. For example, throughout the world, the adoption of agriculture seemed to go hand-in-hand with a decrease in physical stature. This could indicate that agricultural diets were not as nutritious as hunter-gatherer diets—although Hassett is quick to pour scorn on the current fad for so-called ‘palaeo’ diets.

Hassett explains how our move to urban lifestyle, while conveying certain benefits, also seems to have had numerous drawbacks—especially for those lower down the pecking order. She includes several chapters on how urban living led to new forms of violence, and encouraged different types of disease. All of which sounds rather gloomy—which perhaps explains Hassett’s liberal use of (a few too many) footnote-based jokes.

Built on Bones covers a surprisingly interesting subject in an entertaining manner. If I have one criticism it is that, in the early chapters in particular, Hassett often writes extremely long, heavily nested sentences. So much so that, on a number of occasions, I finally reached the end of a sentence only to discover I had entirely forgotten what it had been about. It’s a flaw I have tried to overcome, with limited success, in my own writing. (Handy hint: Try reading your sentences out loud. If you begin to asphyxiate before the end, they’re almost certainly too long.)